I. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the formation of antenna beam patterns (beamforming), and more particularly to a technique for adaptive transmit beamforming based on the result of adaptive receive beamforming.
II. Description of the Related Art
Within wireless mobile communication systems, directive antennas may be employed at base station sites as a means of increasing the signal level received by each mobile user relative to the level of received signal interference. This is effected by increasing the energy radiated to a desired recipient mobile user, while simultaneously reducing the interference energy radiated to other remote mobile users. Such reduction in the interference energy radiated to mobile users over other wireless channels may be achieved through generation of spatially selective, directive transmission beam patterns. Unlike "line-of-sight" radio links, a number of signal transmission paths typically comprise each wireless communication channel.
FIG. 1 shows an illustrative representation of a wireless "multipath" communication channel between a base station 2 and a remote mobile user 4. The various signal transmission paths within each such multipath communication channel arise from reflection of the transmitted signal by dominant reflection surfaces 6, and by minor reflection surfaces 12, between the base station 2 and remote mobile user 4. Accordingly, techniques for improving signal reception in line-of-sight radio systems are often not directly applicable to multipath signal environments. For example, in line-of-sight system the "gain" of an antenna typically varies inversely to antenna beam width. However, if a given antenna beam width is made less than the angular region encompassing the various signal paths comprising a multipath communication channel, further reduction in the beam width may reduce the energy radiated along some of the angular paths. In turn, this may actually decrease the effective time average gain of the antenna.
Within wireless mobile communication systems, three techniques have been developed for improving communication link performance using directive transmit antennas: (i) selection of a particular fixed beam from an available set of fixed beams, (ii) adaptive beam forming based on receive signal angle estimates, (iii) adaptive transmission based on feedback provided by the remote mobile user, and (iv) adaptive transmit beam forming based upon the instantaneous receive beam pattern. Each of these techniques is described briefly below.
In the first technique, one of several fixed base station antenna beam patterns is selected to provide a fixed beam steered in a particular direction. The fixed antenna beams are often of equal beam width, and are often uniformly offset in boresight angle so as to encompass all desired transmission angles. The antenna beam selected for transmission typically corresponds to the beam pattern through which the largest signal is received. The fixed beam approach offers the advantage of simple implementation, but provides no mechanism for reducing the signal interference power radiated to remote mobile users within the transmission beam of the base station. This arises because of the inability of the traditional fixed beam approach to sense the interference power delivered to undesired users.
The second approach involves "adapting" the beam pattern produced by a base station phase array in response to changing multipath conditions. In such beamforming antenna arrays, or "beamformers", the antenna beam pattern is generated so as to maximize signal energy transmitted to ("transmit beamforming"), and received from ("receive beamforming"), an intended recipient mobile user.
While the process of transmit beamforming to a fixed location over a line-of-sight radio channel may be performed with relative ease, the task of transmitting to a mobile user over a time-varying multipath communication channel is typically considerably more difficult. One adaptive transmit beamforming approach contemplates determining each angle of departure (AOD) at which energy is to be transmitted from the base station antenna array to a given remote mobile user. Each AOD corresponds to one of the signal paths of the multipath channel, and is determined by estimating each angle of arrival (AOA) at the base station of signal energy from the given user. A transmit beam pattern is then adaptively formed so as to maximize the radiation projected along each desired AOD (i.e, the AOD spectrum), while minimizing the radiation projected at all other angles. Several well known algorithms (e.g., MUSIC, ESPRIT, and WSF) may be used to estimate an AOA spectrum corresponding to a desired AOD spectrum.
Unfortunately, obtaining accurate estimates of the AOA spectrum for communications channels comprised of numerous multipath constituents has proven problematic. Resolving the AOA spectrum for multiple co-channel mobile units is further complicated if the average signal energy received at the base station from any of the mobile units is significantly less than the energy received from other mobile units. This is due to the fact that the components of the base station array response vector contributed by the lower-energy incident signals are comparatively small, thus making it difficult to ascertain the AOA spectrum corresponding to those mobile units. Moreover, near field obstructions proximate base station antenna arrays tend to corrupt the array calibration process, thereby decreasing the accuracy of the estimated AOA spectrum.
In the third technique mentioned above, feedback information is received at the base station from both the desired mobile user, and from mobile users to which it is desired to minimize transmission power. This feedback permits the base station to "learn" the "optimum" transmit beam pattern, i.e., the beam pattern which maximizes transmission to the desired mobile user and minimizes transmission to all other users. One disadvantage of the feedback approach is that the mobile radio needs to be significantly more complex than would otherwise be required. Moreover, the information carrying capacity of each radio channel is reduced as a consequence of the bandwidth allocated for transmission of antenna training signals and mobile user feedback information. The resultant capacity reduction may be significant when the remote mobile users move at a high average velocity, as is the case in most cellular telephone systems.
The fourth conventional technique for improving communication link performance involves use of an optimum receive beam pattern as the preferred transmission beam pattern. After calibrating for differences between the antenna array and electronics used in the transmitter and receiver, it is assumed that the instantaneous estimate of the nature of the receive channel is equivalent to that of the transmit channel. Unfortunately, multipath propagation and other transient channel phenomenon can substantially eliminate any significant equivalence between frequency-duplexed transmit and receive channels, or between time-division duplexed transmit and receive channels separated by a significant time interval. As a consequence, communication link performance fails to be improved.